ANTRIM will look to sports psychology to try and break down the mental barriers that are stunting their progression says joint-manager Gearoid Adams.
While Adams and Frank Fitzsimons have yet to meet with county officials to discuss their ratification for a second term together – a third in total for Fitzsimons – it’s understood that their reappointment will be confirmed in the coming weeks.
With former champion boxer Brian Magee expected to remain as the team’s trainer, Adams feels that a step-up will be required physically and mentally to cope with the challenges 2017 will bring.
“The whole psyche is something we need to have a serious look at,” admitted the St John’s man.
“You see the big teams in Ulster, and the teams are still there, when they drop a goal or two, they don’t drop the heads. They keep pushing on.”
Asked if bringing in a sports psychologist was something Antrim would consider, Adams said: “We did in the past and I’ve talked to Frank already, it’s something we’ll definitely do in the future.
“I don’t think you can argue against them anymore.
“Some people in years past might have said they were over-valued.
“But you look at every major sporting success over the last five years – Leicester this year, Ireland in the Six Nations the last few years, whatever it is, there’s always an excellent sports psychologist in the backroom.”
The narrative of their first campaign was strong until mid-April, but unravelled quickly to result in another first round Championship exit.
Promotion to Division Three of the National League had already been secured before defeat to Louth in the final left them trophyless, and losses to Fermanagh and Limerick cut their summer short.
Limerick came to Corrigan Park as underdogs but hit two goals in the opening eight minutes to take control of the round one Qualifier.
That costly poor start came on top of a hugely disappointing first half display against the Ernemen, in which they scored just two points.
“Our no-show against Fermanagh in the first half and our defeat against Limerick was bitter to be honest. I can’t dress it up any other way. It was very disheartening and disappointing.
“We didn’t see it coming. For the majority of matches this year we’d performed quite well. Our only worry was not performing for 15 or 20 minutes at a time, which happens.
“But in both those matches we didn’t perform. The Fermanagh match, we didn’t perform for the whole of the first half and were seven points down.
“Against Limerick, once we conceded the goal, I think the fragility of our mindset came in. That’s something we thought we had improved upon.”
Adams also revealed the struggle to get his players to buy into a defensive system and says that the open, attacking nature of Antrim club football is a contributing factor to that.
An Antrim footballer for 13 years himself, Adams concedes that they may have to sacrifice quality for athleticism if the Saffrons are to compete in the third tier.
“Antrim club football is very good, but there are very few teams playing that defensive system.
“It’s getting all our players to buy into exactly what we want to do. We thought we had that.
“Maybe we learnt a hard lesson, that we probably played too many footballers and not enough workers. That’s something we maybe have to look at.
“There’s players on our team who are as good a footballers as on any team in Ulster, but we need a mixture between that and the legs and athleticism and the ability to stick together when things are tough.”
